Why Are Israeli Patients Hitting Nurses?

Israeli nurses went on strike last week after another bout of violence against them.

Why do disgruntled patients and their families hit nurses? Why are teachers the target of violence? Do you hit doctors whom you pay out of pocket? When you send your child to a private tutor, do you hit the tutor? Could it be that people who provide free services are hit while those who demand payment are accorded more honor?

Advertisement

Nurses put their hearts and souls into their work – and teachers do, too. So how do human beings come to treat them so horribly? That answer is that both the health and education systems in Israel heavily socialistic. They are both services that the state pretends to provide while attempting to prevent the private sector from competing. The result is that in both these fields, Israeli spending is among the highest in the world, but the country has little to show for it. Israeli students, for example rate 39th in the world (behind Turkey).

The awful people who hit nurses do so because Israel, since its founding, has fostered a socialist culture that transfers all responsibility to the state. Then everyone competes for the attention of the system. There is no producer-consumer relationship. Instead, our health and education systems are based on the “kindness” of Big Brother toward the rabble fighting for their place in line.

What’s the solution? In the health field, it’s to privatize Israel’s hospitals on condition that the parties competing for money continue to provide the service at the same price. In a certain way, that has already been done in the maternity wards, which compete for the Social Security vouchers the government provides for mothers. As a result, maternity wards in Israel look like five-star hotels.

(The same should be done in education. The voucher method will turn teachers into private tutors and parents will treat them accordingly.)

So let there be healthy competition between hospitals. It will lead to major improvements in their services. Excellent doctors who bring in more patients will be compensated accordingly, salaries will rise, patients will receive better service and nobody will hit nurses (or teachers) whom he has chosen himself, and can also fire, anymore.

Moshe Feiglin is the former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. He heads the Zehut Party.
He is the founder of Manhigut Yehudit and Zo Artzeinu and the author of two books: "Where There Are No Men" and "War of Dreams."
Feiglin served in the IDF as an officer in Combat Engineering and is a veteran of the Lebanon War.
He lives in Ginot Shomron with his family.